This Week’s Lipstick/Pig Award: No contest, goes to the Meridian School District, which tried to make the jail-basement-themed lunchroom at Meridian Middle School seem less awful by erecting a banner outside welcoming students to the “Meridian Eatery.”
Uptake: Give that upcoming construction bond measure some serious consideration, folks.
OMG, The Hammer Almost Wept: In fact, did. That record rainfall descending upon the ‘Ham Wednesday night was fueled, in part, by actual Hammer tears of joy.
The Scene: Clouds magically parted over the Samish Way Interstate 5 interchange. Angels — or perhaps displaced tree frogs — were heard singing on high (perhaps from the rooftop of the nearby, hideous apartment complex called “The Jake,” AKA “The Blight.”) A couple of banana slugs paused on the crosswalk and did a radula-bump.
The Occasion: After (literally) decades of toil, FixIt app posts, cranky newspaper editorials, letters to the editor, a couple offers of outright bribes to city folks, etc., the Original Wagon Trail Ruts™ on the crumbled remnants of city streets around the Samish Way interchange have gone the way of the Dodo bird. In a long-awaited act of mercy, they were filled by a glorious, steaming asphalt spewer during the wee hours of three nights this past week.
Worth Noting: Countless years of civic angst took a contractor less than three nights to erase. Someone just needed to finally unleash the asphalt hounds.
What It Cost: If you have to ask …
What It Might Mean: The city finally realized its current priority system for maintaining, repairing and repaving local streets might have a “mid-size crisis” gap, including places that have been ill-maintained to the point of failure. Thus they are too expensive to qualify as quick fixes, but too small to be included in major, blocks-long processes precipitated by construction and other factors.
What it Probably Actually Means: Somebody on the city council got tired of all the old men diverting their shouting at the clouds to shouting at council chambers. Public pressure, evenly applied over, oh, 25 years, eventually seeks an outlet.
The Intangible Benefit: All those hordes of parents dumping Buffy and Knox off at Western no longer will have to enter or leave town asking, “Who runs this place, anyway?” Which, for the folks who currently do, is a very good thing.
Either Way: Hammer will take it. And he can now proclaim with some degree of seriousness that he is only one or two accomplishments away from being able to take the rest of his life off.
Will He Shut Up Now? No. But he will move on. To quote folkie Arlo Guthrie 15 minutes into singing the live version of “Alice’s Restaurant,” Hammer is neither proud nor tired.
Speaking of Tired: Hammer was asked several times this week: Are you not going to weigh in on the latest Port of Bellingham follies?
Answer: Not really. Others have been there/done that, to be specific here and in our letters section.
However (Harumphing Sound Here): It’s worth adding: Fascinating and telling, was it not, that when the commissioners from the Port That Time Forgot got deep into the weeds about how much energy they should exert to inform the public about all the great things they’re doing, the subject of the local airport, Bellingham Intergalactic (RIP Dick Beardsley), never once came up?
Little Do They (Seem to) Know: Their organization is likely judged (harshly, at that) more times on a daily basis for their limp efforts there than on literally anything that goes on at the container stacks and putt-putt poop pads that currently qualify as Bellingham’s waterfront rebirth. This is a fact. And you could ask the port’s director of aviation next time you … oh. Never mind.
Go Ahead and Do It: You know you want to. Morning temp midweek hit the mid-50s. It’s time.
Oh, Sure: Some warmer weather will reappear, like your neighbor’s double-timing cat (insert your own presidential debate meme here) around feeding time. Reach for that shirt anyway. Let yourself be enveloped by the comforting confines of your long-lost best flannel friend. It’s in your blood. Well, at least it’s in the Hammer’s.
That Would Be: Type C, as in cotton.
Barrels Poised to Burn: Looks increasingly like the chickens (some fired from cannons at cockpit windshields?) have come home to roost down at the Lazy B, where 33,000-some Machinists voted to strike at Puget Sound Boeing plants.
Hoo Boy: The Machinists have been gearing up for this fight for a very long time. And they smell blood in the water thanks to a decade and a half of what can only be described as sheer incompetence by company management. They have Boeing literally over a barrel — and the Machinists do know how to convert those for long-term use.
Predictions? Hammer is no Nostradamus. But know this: The Machinists have a lot more experience in prosecuting, maintaining and winning a strike than their feckless top-level managers at Boeing, formerly of Seattle, have in ending one quickly. Do your own math.
Meanwhile, Closer to Home: Lots of folks are still waiting for action from Whatcom County’s In-house Quasi-Investigative Commission that’s supposedly hard at work looking into the inner trappings of what became of that big, fat harassment settlement involving former Public Works Director Jon Hutchings.
Four Months Now: But is anyone counting, beyond the Andrew Reding Select Blue-Ribbon Eat-Your-Own Subcommittee at local D party HQ? Hammer hopes so.
In All Fairness: There’s probably a lot of other important stuff keeping the county from acting swiftly here. They’re just not sure what it is.
On the Other Hand: Expressing grave concern and ultimately doing nothing is a specialty among some local government boards, such as (cough cough) this one and the Port of Bellingham commission. And the first rule of bureaucracy is to ensure that sufficient Short-Attention-Span time has passed between accusations and reverberations, if any.
Actually, Check That: The port long ago stopped even bothering with the “expressing grave concern” part — unless they can find a way to tack that, too, onto a Consent Agenda to avoid anything resembling meaningful discussion.
Speaking of Dog Years: How’s that search for a new regional airline to replace the departed Southwest coming along, Part-time Port of Bellingham Aviation Director Pro-Tempore Rob Fix? The folks paying your salary are more than mildly interested, if feedback to the locally owned paper is any indication. Many of them are extremely not happy. Surly, even.
Free Advice: Good first test for your spendy new public-relations consultant, hired with funds from the public lipstick/pig account.
And Speaking of That: One of the promised precepts of that scheme was an initial assessment of the local media landscape. Hammer awaits his call.
A Bridge Too Close: Hammer could not help but notice the dueling bridge-project disasters in town on Wednesday/Thursday, when separate contractors managed to drill into A) a sewer pipe near Lake Whatcom, spilling an estimated “serious buttload” of raw sewage into the city’s drinking water source and B) a natural gas pipeline closer to downtown. The city should have known when it let the contracts to Close Enough For Governmment Work Partnership, LLC.
CDN Reader Diann asks The Hammer: Can’t somebody from the city launch an air or ground attack at the tall weeds growing up along city sidewalks? Specifically on Cable Street down Lakeway to the south-end Fred Meyer.
We’re Not Sure, But: This is a good question. Hammer has been assured by city council member Michael Lilliquist that such matters will be solved quickly if reported to the See/Click/WaitWaitWaitWaitWaitForFix app. If you have that on your phone. Or if you even have a phone. Or if you can see its screen through the chest-high weeds reaching up to gouge out your eyeballs.
In Any Case: Hammer hears you, Diann! And if his heart were not made of tempered steel, he would feel your pain.
Count On This: Eventually the weeds, like an urgent investigation by the Whatcom County Council, shall shrivel and die. Or perhaps burn in a brief but spectacular fire that will shut down the Lakeway intersection for about a day and a half. Either way, it’s an eventual win-win.
The Hammer, posted monthly and updated somewhat regularly, is the alter-ego and collective consciousness of CDN’s executive editor and staff, informed and inspired by the feisty, humor-capable readers of Cascadia Daily News. Don’t take him too seriously. Send comments, complaints or ideas for Hammer items to Hammer’s supervisor, ronjudd@cascadiadaily.com.
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Expanding public input — and commission seats — at the Port of Bellingham